Dia de los Muertos ( The day of the Dead)

Five facts about Día de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead)

           José Guadalupe Posada's depiction of La Calavera Catrina, shown wearing a fanciful early 20th century hat.

Sugar skulls, monarch butterflies, marigolds and traditional paper banners (papel picado) are all symbols of the Día de los Muertos. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian Latino Center)

Dance group Los Tecuanes perform the “La Danza de los Tecuanes” at a festival celebrating Día de los Muertos at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian Latino Center)

1. It’s not the same as Halloween

While Halloween is celebrated Oct. 31, Día de los Muertos is celebrated right after, on Nov. 2. Many communities that celebrate Día de los Muertos also celebrate Halloween.

2. It originated in Mexico and Central America

Día de los Muertos originated in ancient Mesoamerica (Mexico and northern Central America) where indigenous groups, including Aztec, Maya and Toltec, had specific times when they commemorated their loved ones who had passed away. Certain months were dedicated to remembering the departed, based on whether the deceased was an adult or a child.

After the arrival of the Spanish, this ritual of commemorating the dead was intertwined with two Spanish holidays: All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and All Soul’s Day (Nov. 2). Día de los Muertos is often celebrated on Nov. 1 as a day to remember children who have passed away, and on Nov. 2 to honor adults.

Today, Día de los Muertos is celebrated mostly in Mexico and some parts of Central and South America. Recently it has become increasingly popular among Latino communities abroad, including in the United States.

3. It’s a celebration of life, not death

Ancient Mesoamericans believed that death was part of the journey of life. Rather than death ending life, they believed that new life came from death. This cycle is often associated with the cyclical nature of agriculture, whereby crops grow from the ground where the last crop lies buried.

Día de los Muertos is an opportunity to remember and celebrate the lives of departed loved ones. Like any other celebration, Día de los Muertos is filled with music and dancing. Some popular dances include La Danza de los Viejitos—the dance of the little old men—in which boys and young men dress as old men, walk around crouched over then suddenly jump up in an energetic dance. Another dance is La Danza de los Tecuanes—the dance of the jaguars—that depicts farm workers hunting a jaguar.

4. The ofrenda is a central component

The ofrenda is often the most recognized symbol of Día de los Muertos. This temporary altar is a way for families to honor their loved ones and provide them what they need on their journey. They place down pictures of the deceased, along with items that belonged to them and objects that serve as a reminder of their lives.

Every ofrenda also includes the four elements: water, wind, earth and fire. Water is left in a pitcher so the spirits can quench their thirst. Papel picado, or traditional paper banners, represent the wind. Earth is represented by food, especially bread. Candles are often left in the form of a cross to represent the cardinal directions, so the spirits can find their way.

Traditional calaveras, or skulls, which are prominent on Día de los Muertos. (Courtesy of the Smithsonian Latino Center)

 

5. Flowers, butterflies and skulls are typically used as symbols

The cempasúchil, a type of marigold flower native to Mexico, is often placed on ofrendas and around graves. With their strong scent and vibrant color the petals are used to make a path that leads the spirits from the cemetery to their families’ homes.

Monarch butterflies play a role in Día de los Muertos because they are believed to hold the spirits of the departed. This belief stems from the fact that the first monarchs arrive in Mexico for the winter each fall on Nov. 1, which coincides with Día de los Muertos.

Calaveritas de azucar, or sugar skulls, along with toys, are left on the altars for children who have passed. The skull is used not as morbid symbol but rather as a whimsical reminder of the cyclicality of life, which is why they are brightly decorated.

Learn more about Día de los Muertos, visit the Smithsonian Latino Center’s Latino Virtual Museum.

The Dred Scott Decision March 6th,1857

   

Origins of the case. 

Dred Scott's slave master had brought him from the slave state of Missouri to live for a time in free territory and in the free state of Illinois. Eventually they returned to Missouri. Scott believed that because he had lived in free territory, he should be free. In 1854 he sued in federal court for his freedom. The court ruled against him, and he appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Ruling

The Supreme Court ruled that African Americans were not and could never be citizens. Thus, Dred Scott had no right even to file a lawsuit and remained enslaved.

South India celebrate Diwali as the day that Lord Krishna (depicted above) defeated the demon Narakasura.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MURALI NATH, DREAMSTIME

 

Diwali: Festival of Lights

Learn about India's biggest holiday of the year.

Diwali, or Dipawali, is India's biggest and most important holiday of the year. The festival gets its name from the row (avali) of clay lamps (deepa) that Indians light outside their homes to symbolize the inner light that protects from spiritual darkness. This festival is as important to Hindus as the Christmas holiday is to Christians.

Over the centuries, Diwali has become a national festival that's also enjoyed by non-Hindu communities. For instance, in Jainism, Diwali marks the nirvana, or spiritual awakening, of Lord Mahavira on October 15, 527 B.C.; in Sikhism, it honors the day that Guru Hargobind Ji, the Sixth Sikh Guru, was freed from imprisonment. Buddhists in India celebrate Diwali as well.

Diwali: What is it?

Diwali is the five-day Festival of Lights, celebrated by millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains across the world.

Diwali, which for some also coincides with harvest and new year celebrations, is a festival of new beginnings and the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness.

When is Diwali?

The festival is usually some time between October and November, with the date changing each year.

Where does the name Diwali come from?

The word Diwali comes from the Sanskrit word deepavali, meaning "rows of lighted lamps".

Houses, shops and public places are decorated with small oil lamps called diyas. People also enjoy fireworks and sweets too, so it's really popular with children.

What's the festival about?

Each religion marks different historical events and stories.

Hindus celebrate the return of deities Rama and Sita to Ayodhya after their 14-year exile. They also celebrate the day Mother Goddess Durga destroyed a demon called Mahisha.

Sikhs particularly celebrate the release from prison of the sixth guru Hargobind Singh in 1619. But Sikhs celebrated the festival before this date.

In fact, the foundation stone of the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the most holy place in the Sikh world, was laid on Diwali in 1577.

The founder of Jainism is Lord Mahavira. During Diwali, Jains celebrate the moment he reached a state called Moksha (nirvana, or eternal bliss).

Traditions

• Many lights and oil lamps are lit on the streets and in houses
• People visit their relatives and have feasts
• Fireworks and festivities are an essential part of the occasion
• Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, is worshipped as the bringer of blessings for the new year

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/15451833

https://www.dalailama.com/videos/diwali-message

https://www.dalailama.com/the-dalai-lama

The Dalai Lamas are believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be manifestations of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and the patron saint of Tibet. Bodhisattvas are realized beings, inspired by the wish to attain complete enlightenment, who have vowed to be reborn in the world to help all living beings.

James Forten

  

JAMES FORTEN (1766-1842)

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/forten-james-1766-1842/

James Forten was born free on September 2, 1766 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents were Thomas and Sarah Forten. He was also the grandson of slaves.  His formative years were spent in Philadelphia, and he attended Anthony Benezet’s Quaker school for African American children.  By the time he turned eight years old, he was working for Robert Bridges’s sail loft. This is where his father worked as well. The following year, his father was the victim of an unfortunate boating accident and died. This tragedy resulted in nine-year-old James having to take on additional work to support his family.

Over time, James Forten became interested in politics and avidly campaigned for and supported temperance, women’s suffrage, and equal rights for African Americans.  In 1800, he was the leader in organizing a petition that called for Congress to emancipate all slaves. His activism was further recognized when he wrote and published a pamphlet denouncing the Pennsylvania legislature for prohibiting the immigration of freed black slaves from other states.

James Forten died on March 4, 1842.  His early years had been devoted to providing for his widowed mother, his middle years towards acquiring a vast economic fortune and rectifying the brutal injustices that had been perpetrated upon his fellow African Americans, poor people, and women.

Interactive Civil War

   http://www.history.com/civil-war-150#/who-they-were

http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/stonewall-jackson/videos/stonewall-jackson

Southern Secession

   

Secession definition: The withdrawal of a state from the Union.

The Civil War Begins

   The Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12–14, 1861) was the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, nearCharleston, South Carolina, that started the American Civil War.

•Southern States left the Union upon the election of Abraham Lincoln, declared themselves the Confederate States of America, and seized federal arsenals in the South

•When Confederate forces opened fire on Fort Sumter, SC, Lincoln declared the Southern states in rebellion and called for 75,000 volunteers to fight

Jefferson Davis -President Confederate States of America

http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/american-civil-war-history/pictures/confederate-leaders/profile-portrait-of-jefferson-davis-3

Abraham Lincoln Elected President 1860

   

Lincoln

•From Illinois, he was opposed to the expansion of slavery, not the abolition, of slavery. He also claimed that the Union should be maintained at all costs.

--In 1860 he defeated 3 other candidates (only 39 percent of vote). Did not even campaign in the South

The senatorial campaign featured a remarkable series of public encounters on the slavery issue, known as the Lincoln-Douglas debates, in which Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery, while Douglas maintained that each territory should have the right to decide whether it would become free or slave.

John Brown

   John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) 

American abolitionist who believed armed insurrection was the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States.

Brown's attempt in 1859 to start a liberation movement among enslaved African Americans in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, electrified the nation. He was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men and inciting a slave insurrection. He was found guilty on all counts and was hanged. 

Bleeding Kansas

   

Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery Free-Staters and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements, that took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of the state of Missouri between 1854 and 1861.

  The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 called for "popular sovereignty"—that is, the decision about slavery was to be made by the settlers (rather than outsiders). 

Beecher's Bibles( Sharps Rifle)

"Beecher's Bibles" was the name given to the breech loading Sharps rifles that were supplied to the anti-slavery immigrants in Kansas.

Harriet Tubman- Grandma Moses

   Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1822 – March 10, 1913) was an African-American abolitionist,humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made about thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved family and friends,^[1] using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. 

Map of various Underground Railroad routes

Uncle Tom's Cabin 1852

   

                                                               Harriet Beecher Stowe(author)

Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century and the second best-selling book of that century, following the Bible. It is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s.

https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/opinion/14Reynolds.html?_r=0

Harriet Beecher Stowe and Abraham Lincoln

Featured snippet from the web

It is reported that upon being introduced to Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, Abraham Lincoln fondly commented she was "the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."

Soloman Northup - 12 Years a Slave

  

 

The work was published by Derby & Miller of Auburn, New York, soon after Harriet Beecher Stowe's best-selling novel about slavery, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), to which it lent factual support. Northup's book, dedicated  to Stowe, sold 30,000 copies, making it a bestseller in its own right

Fugitive Slave Law 1850

   

 The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers.

It required that all escaped slaves were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate in this law.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 counts as one of the most reprehensible laws in American history. But rather than wait for Congress to repeal it, or for the Supreme Court to strike it down, Northern States took action to nullify it in practice and effect.


http://www.compromise-of-1850.org/fugitive-slave-act-of-1850/

Compromise of 1850

   The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed in the United States in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848).

•California admitted as a free state, but fugitive slave law would be strengthened, allowing slave owners to go into the northern states to recapture escaped slaves.

Missouri Compromise

   The Missouri Compromise , submitted by Henry Clay, was passed in 1820 between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress, involving primarily the regulation of slavery in the western territories.

•Equal number of slave and free states

Missouri entered as a slave state, Maine as a free state, and north of 36’30’ latitude not open to slavery in the future

reTextbook

Chapter 4 Causes Civil War

   Question. Can you compromise on an issue like slavery?

1.The Missouri Compromise
2.The Compromise of 1850
3.Fugitive Slave Act
4.Uncle Tom’s Cabin
5.The Kansas-Nebraska Act/Bleeding Kansas( Beechers' Bibles)
6.The Dred Scott Decision
7.The Election of 1860
8.Southern Seccession

Create a slideshow with the following information. Events 1-8

For each event, include:

     1. An image

·        2 . the date and a brief description

·        3.  why it led to the Civil War

Tecumseh

 

Tecumseh

Tecumseh was a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and promoting inter-tribal unity.

Tecumseh began life in the Shawnee village of Piqua, Ohio on March 9, 1768 as a great meteor flashed and burned its way across the heavens. This event accounts for his name: The Shooting Star, or Celestial Panther Lying in Wait. Tecumseh grew to be a famous warrior and dynamic orator. These skills, paired with his belief that the white man would never rest until all American Indians were dispossessed, made him a powerful and influential force.

 

https://www.nps.gov/people/tecumseh.htm

Tecumseh's vision of a unified American Indian homeland was never fully realized. Within 35 years of Tecumseh's death at Moraviantown, many Native nations east of the Mississippi River were forcibly relocated. But today the great Tecumseh is still revered for his intelligence, leadership, and military skills, and he is honored throughout North America.

Following increasingly restrictive land cessation treaties between the United States and Indian nations, tribal people were faced with difficult choices. Would Natives follow the restrictions of the Americans or fight them? Would they remain an independent people, or assimilate into white society? Would they remain on ancestral lands  or leave home in the interest of keeping peace? These difficult choices did not have easy answers.

Although Tecumseh at first urged peace among tribes, his meaning was clear: Indians must unite and fight to save their lands if necessary.

Confederation in a new world order: 

Gabriel Prosser's Rebellon

 

Gabriel Prosser plans the first major slave rebellion

 "I have nothing more to offer than what General Washington would have had to offer, had he been taken by the British and put to trial."

Shackles on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Gabriel intended to "purchase a piece of silk for a flag on which they would have written 'death or liberty' "-a clear reference to Patrick Henry's fiery speech of 1775.

The African Burial Ground in Richmond, where Gabriel was probably buried. (Ryan K. Smith)

The birth of Gabriel Prosser in 1776 is remembered on this date. He was a Black abolitionist.

A slave child, Gabriel was born to the family-owned by Thomas Henry Prosser of the Brookfield Plantation in Henrico County, Virginia. Viewed as a "man of courage and intellect above his rank and life," Prosser was an imposing figure.  He was dark-skinned and stood 6 feet, 2 or 3 inches tall. He had lost two front teeth and his head was scarred.  Unlike many slaves, he had been educated in his youth and became a blacksmith, which gave him access to life beyond the plantation.

During the Antebellum South, skilled slaves were often hired out; some slaves also got Sunday off. They could earn some money of their own, after paying a portion to their masters.  However, white merchants controlled the flow of raw goods into and out of the city, and they could pressure the skilled slaves to lower their prices by simply choking off the stream of materials. The masters, meanwhile, still got their share off the top. This exploitive system was grounds for revolt among the slaves.

In 1800, Prosser and several other slaves plotted their own revolution, planning to marshal the forces of up to 10,000 Blacks, who would take Richmond in an armed revolution, kill every white, and save the French, the Methodists, the Quakers, and the poor.  The plan called for a three-pronged assault on the city on an August night; it was put down just as it got started.  Two slaves who lived on the Henrico plantation of Meadow Farm betrayed the plot to their owner, Mosby Sheppard.  Sheppard immediately informed Governor Monroe, who called out the militia.  On August 30, torrential rains washed away roads and bridges, limiting the movement of the rebellious slaves.

About 30 slaves were captured and executed. Prosser, however, eluded the militia and escaped down the Chickahominy River. The governor put a $300 reward on his head, and on September 24, he was captured aboard a ship in Norfolk, VA.  On October 10, 1800, at Richmond's gallows at 15th and Broad streets, Gabriel Prosser was hanged, he was 24 years old.

His quest for freedom only tightened the grip of slavery.  In the aftermath of the insurrection, slave laws were toughened not only in Virginia but also in other states, North and South. In Virginia, abolition societies were driven underground and travel was restricted. Free Blacks who did not leave the state within six months risked re-enslavement.

Prosser heralded the cause of independence for himself and for all slaves. It was a cause for which he was willing to take extreme measures and pay the ultimate price.   On August 30th, 2007  Black freedom fighter Gabriel Prosser was (posthumously)pardoned by (then) Virginia Governor, Tim Kaine.

Reference:
Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and
African American Experience
Editors: Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Copyright 1999
ISBN 0-465-0071-1